Politics
Culberson campaign picks up some cash in House race
By ALAN BERNSTEIN, Houston Chronicle, 11 April 2008
HOUSTON – U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, appears to have struck gold with the campaign fundraising pitch that he faces his hardest re-election challenge, but he still lags significantly behind Democratic challenger Michael Skelly at the bank.
Texas GOP Runoff Goes to Ex-Senate Aide in Race for DeLay’s Old Seat
By Greg Giroux, Congressional Quarterly, 8 April 2008
Texas Republican Pete Olson, a Navy veteran and former Senate aide, easily won a primary runoff election on Tuesday to become the Republican nominee in the state’s 22nd Congressional District.
Jockeying begins for District 17 position
By R.G. RATCLIFFE, Houston Chronicle, 13 April 2008
AUSTIN – State Sen. Kyle Janek has not yet officially resigned and the special election to replace him has not been set. But there already are candidates lining up to fight for his Senate District 17 seat.
Flores: Tell me what sort of lawmaker you want me to be
By Steve Taylor, Rio Grande Guardian, 4/14/8
McALLEN, April 14 -- Since his narrow re-election victory in the March 4 primary, state Rep. Kino Flores has been reaching out to those individuals and groups who did not back him.
Travis election underscores blogs' potential for mischief
By Jason Embry, AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN, 13 April 2008
AUSTIN – Imagine the uproar if a newspaper reporter were paid thousands of dollars by a political candidate and then wrote about the candidate's opponent in the newspaper under a different name.
Macias loses latest recount bid
New Braunfels Herald-Zeitung, 12 April 2008
NEW BRAUNFELS – The Republican Party of Texas has denied a request by Dist. 73 Rep. Nathan Macias, R- Bulverde, for a second recount of the March 4 primary results.
State Rep. Hughes Favors Ending Property Taxes
Tyler Morning Telegraph, 12 April 2008
GILMER – State Rep. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, told a Republican women’s luncheon Thursday that he favors eliminating local property taxes and using state surplus funds to make up the revenue.
Perry plans closed-door chat with GOP governors
Austin American-Statesman, 12 April 2008
AUSTIN – Fresh from hosting a private gala for the visiting Aga Khan tonight, Gov. Rick Perry will gear up for another secretive do.
Texas: House Speaker Craddick Gets Runoff Boosts
By Hastings Wyman, Southern Political Report, 14 April 2008
Controversial, conservative Tom Craddick (R), speaker of the Texas state House of Representatives, started off the year 2008 looking like a goner to hold on to his powerful post in Lone Star government and politics.
Craddick supporters win big in runoff elections
By Enrique Rangel, Amarillo Globe-News, 14 April 2008
AMARILLO – The race for Texas House speaker was back in the spotlight last week, and for Tom Craddick it was welcome news.
Real choices at PEC
Austin American-Statesman, 12 April 2008
AUSTIN – The decision by two voting directors not to run for re-election, and the recent departure of a third, doesn’t mean that a new majority will take control of the board of Pedernales Electric Cooperative Inc. after this year’s election on June 21. But it’s definitely progress.
Government
State opens Christmas Mountains to public for first time
By R.A. DYER, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 11 April 2008
AUSTIN – For the first time in the nearly two decades that the state has owned the property, the controversy-dogged Christmas Mountains are being opened to the public.
Christmas Mountains open to hikers – just plan for a long trek
By AMAN BATHEJA, JOHN MORITZ, MARIA RECIO and ANNA M. TINSLEY, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 13 April 2008
FORT WORTH – Thanks to a decision by Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson, the 9,269-acre Christmas Mountains will be open to the public for the first time in at least 17 years.
Tex-Arcana: Christmas in the desert? It's not clear why
By Gary Scharrer, San Antonio Express-News, 14 March 2008
AUSTIN – Most Texans probably were unaware of the Christmas Mountains when Land Commissioner Jerry Patterson elevated the profile of the state-owned land last year.
Gutierrez: A border fence is not going to solve the problem
By Steve Taylor and Joey Gomez, Rio Grande Guardian, 11 April 2008
McALLEN – U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez told McAllen business leaders Friday that a border fence would not solve the problem of undocumented migrants crossing into the country and that the real answer lies with comprehensive immigration reform.
Judge grants U.S. access to land in border fence suit
Houston Chronicle, 11 April 2008
McALLEN – One of the last of more than 50 Rio Grande Valley property owners sued by the federal government to open their land to surveyors for the border fence lost her case in court.
A planned border fence. A threatened ecosystem.
By Brandi Grissom, El Paso Times, 13 April 2008
AUSTIN – The manager of El Paso's largest city park is concerned that federal plans for a border fence will undo years of work to restore natural wetlands on the Rio Grande.
Local officials dismiss talk of abolishing TYC
By David Doerr, Waco Tribune-Herald, 13 April 2008
WACO – While at least one key state lawmaker is calling for the abolition of the troubled Texas Youth Commission, local reaction is mixed and in some cases downright dismissive of such talk.
Earmarks don't always go for needs back home
By BENNETT ROTH, Houston Chronicle, 12 April 2008
WASHINGTON – John Adams never set foot in what is now the Lone Star State.
Texas prepares rules on beaches
By Beth Wilson, Corpus Christi Caller-Times, 13 April 2008
CORPUS CHRISTI – The state is putting together a new set of guidelines to help coastal counties plan for beachfront building.
TAKS may lose its sting
By TERRENCE STUTZ, Dallas Morning News, 14 April 2008
AUSTIN – Lawmakers who lead the way on education policy are warming to the idea of major changes to Texas' report card system for public schools, which already gets failing marks from superintendents and teachers.
State-mandated obesity tests begin
By Candace Birkelbach, Killeen Daily Herald, 14 April 2008
KILLEEN – Childhood obesity is a rising concern for parents, but Texas schools are getting involved.
Red-light camera citations drop as drivers get picture in Fort Worth
By MIKE LEE, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 14 April 2008
FORT WORTH – Drivers are adjusting to the red-light cameras at seven Fort Worth intersections.
Let's make money on border fence
By Joe Muench, El Paso Times, 13 April 2008
EL PASO – Let's think up ways we can build the border fence without the $50 billion coming from taxpayers:
News
Darby had role in YFZ Ranch startup
BY TRISH CHOATE, San Angelo Standard-Times, 13 April 2008
WASHINGTON – A man who helped the polygamist Fundamentalist Church of Latter Day Saints acquire land for the YFZ Ranch is now the state legislator representing San Angelo.
Judge says ranch children must stay in San Angelo
By JAYNA BOYLEand MATT PHINNEY, San Angelo Standard-Times, 12 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – The women and children from the YFZ Ranch won't be leaving San Angelo for a while.
Waco, FLDS raids similar
By Jayna Boyle, San Angelo Standard-Times, 14 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – America's most sweeping religious-compound raids are rooted deep in Texas.
Eldorado, sect 'aren't unfriendly'
By Matt Phinney, San Angelo Standard-Times, 13 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – John Nikolauk noticed a bright-eyed young boy walking next to his mother, who was carrying a baby in her arms.
'Safe'
By Rick Smith, San Angelo Standard-Times, 13 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – The news photograph shows a boy and a girl, perhaps preschool age, playing outside a stone barracks at Fort Concho.
Praying for the sect members
By ANGELA SHAFFER, San Angelo Standard-Times, 13 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – Under a bright blue sky, San Angelo's faithful prayed for forgiveness, wisdom and unity in the names of the 416 children removed this month from an isolated West Texas religious sect compound.
Sect has benefited from millions in taxpayer dollars
By JACK DOUGLAS JR., Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 13 April 2008
FORT WORTH – American taxpayers have unwittingly helped finance a polygamist sect that is now the focus of a massive child abuse investigation in West Texas, with a business tied to the group receiving a nearly $1 million loan from the federal government and $1.2 million in military contracts.
Texas AG: State will help prosecute polygamous sect
By JAY ROOT, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 12 April 2008
AUSTIN – Attorney General Greg Abbott said Friday the state faces a "massive legal undertaking" in its prosecution of a secretive polygamist sect in West Texas, describing it as the largest and farthest-reaching sex abuse case he's ever seen or heard of in Texas.
When the sect moved next door
By BILL HANNA, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 13 April 2008
ELDORADO – To the polygamist followers of Warren Jeffs, West Texas must have looked like a safe retreat.
Sect is a legal nightmare
By John MacCormack, San Atonio Express-News, 13 April 2008
ELDORADO – In seeking permanent custody of hundreds of children removed last week from the West Texas compound of a polygamist sect, child welfare officials are ripping open a Pandora's box of legal and logistical issues.
Care of sect costs state $25,000 a day
By Lisa Sandberg, San Antonio Express-News, 12 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – A unique diet, specially tailored clothes, culturally sensitive counseling: the daily cost of providing care to the 555 women and children relocated from a West Texas polygamist compound is running upward of $25,000 a day.
Foster parent shortage could become tighter if children from Eldorado dispersed throughout state
By Kathleen Thurber, Midland Reporter-Telegram, 13 April 2008
MIDLAND – With some abused and neglected children in Midland already being sent outside the region for foster care, officials say if children from Eldorado need refuge in Midland it's going to amplify an already strained situation.
Raid of polygamist compound delivers daunting task for Child Protective Services
By EMILY RAMSHAW and ROBERT T. GARRETT, The Dallas Morning News, 13 April 2008
DALLAS – Caseworkers, attorneys and guardians responsible for the hundreds of children removed from a West Texas polygamist compound last week are now grasping the reality of their workload – hundreds of painstaking interviews, thousands of pages of records and an ever-growing sense that they may be in over their heads.
Eldorado's tiny paper was first to report on compound
By PAUL MEYER, Dallas Morning News, 14 April 2008
ELDORADO – It started with some rural real estate news and a floppy disk of aerial photos.
Polygamous sect hid in plain sight of Eldorado
By Corrie MacLaggan, AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN, 13 April 2008
AUSTIN – A couple of times a month, pilot J.D. Doyle peeks at a polygamist compound from the West Texas sky, shooting aerial photos from his father's Piper Cherokee plane.
Rangers meet with man accused in girl's phone call
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 13 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – Texas law officers met Saturday in Utah with the man accused of abusing the 16-year-old girl whose call for help led to a raid on the West Texas compound of a secretive polygamous sect.
Extreme sects can besmirch all faiths in the eyes of some
San Angelo Standard-Times, 13 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – From sex scandals to splinter groups, from the fall of men and women of faith to bloody conflict in the name of God, the public face of modern religion may seem pockmarked - and sometimes deeply, perhaps irrevocably, scarred.
Mainstream Mormons see attention as an opportunity
San Angelo Standard-Times, 13 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – Charles Webb of San Angelo, state president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, admits to a bit of confusion when trying to compare mainstream Mormonism with the fundamentalist splinter sect in Eldorado.
New anti-polygamy laws largely untested
San Angelo Standard-Times, 13 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – Prosecutors are using new weapons against bigamy and marriage of underage teens in the FLDS case - the biggest child-custody case in Texas history.
Court has been clear about protecting children in freedom of faith cases
San Angelo Standard-Times, 13 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – A country as vast and pluralistic as the United States, will always have examples of "cultish or extreme faiths," said Alan Wolfe, who teaches in the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College.
'Cyanide poisoning document' found in Texas sect search
Houston Chronicle, 11 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – Authorities searching the compound of a polygamist sect in West Texas found a "cyanide poisoning document" among the dozens of items it seized during a weeklong search.
Future unclear for removed youths
San Angelo Standard-Times, 13 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – Here are some questions regarding what is next for the 416 children removed from the YFZ Ranch because of allegations of a "pervasive" pattern of physical and sexual abuse involving the minors.
Raid fallout affects all children
San Angelo Standard-Times, 12 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – Dr. Sangeeta Singg worries about the roughly 400 children removed from a religious sect's compound in Eldorado because of suspected sexual abuse - sometimes carried out in their temple.
Mothers from polygamous sect seeking help for children
Dallas Morning News, 13 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – The mothers of children removed from a polygamous sect's ranch in West Texas after an abuse allegation are appealing to Gov. Rick Perry for help, saying some of their children have become sick and even required hospitalization.
Jeffs' attorney says Eldorado tip may have been hoax
Houston Chronicle, 12 April 2008
PHOENIX – An attorney for polygamist sect leader Warren Jeffs says Texas authorities may have been duped by a fake phone tip into raiding a West Texas ranch occupied by Jeffs followers.
Polygamist sect in West Texas encouraged fear
San Angelo Standard-Times, 11 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – All their lives, the girls in the polygamist sect in the West Texas desert were told that the outside world was hostile and immoral, and that venturing beyond the brilliant white limestone walls of their compound would consign them to eternal damnation.
Prosecutors: Polygamists' allegiance to Jeffs may be hurdle
Austin American-Statesman, 13 April 2008
PHOENIX – Polygamist sect members who were moved to a Texas compound from their longtime homes along the Utah-Arizona line were handpicked for their fierce loyalty to leader Warren Jeffs, and that allegiance could be a stumbling block for law enforcement, authorities say.
Federal foster care oversight fine costs Texas $4 million
By ROBERT T. GARRETT, The Dallas Morning News, 13 April 2008
AUSTIN – Texas has paid a $4 million federal fine for not seeing its foster children often enough, state officials confirmed Saturday.
Rapid growth may strain
Bryan-College Station Eagle, 14 April 2008
COLLEGE STATION – Being home to four of the nation's fastest-growing metropolitan areas brings Texas its share of bragging rights, but it also taxes the state's resources, says a research economist at Texas A&M University.
Demographer concerned by Texas' immigration trend
By PATRICK McGEE, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 12 April 2008
DALLAS – Texas' immigration trend could spell long-term difficulty because it's so dominated by low-skilled workers.
Galveston native heralds telescope project
Galveston County Daily News, 13 April 2008
GALVESTON – Galveston native and philanthropist George P. Mitchell is urging Texans to support construction of a massive new telescope in hopes of keeping the state and its flagship universities at the forefront of physics and cosmology, the study of the universe, to its farthest reaches.
An old bastion of refuge in a new tale of the West
By Bob Ray Sanders, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 13 April 2008
FORT WORTH – The scene was dramatic and uncanny, to say the least: women and young girls, dressed in 19th-century-style clothing, being escorted into an historic West Texas fort – presumably for their protection.
Protecting children must be main goal
San Angelo Standard-Times, 13 April 2008
SAN ANGELO – On April 3, spurred by a plea for help from a 16-year-old girl, state and local law enforcement approached the gates of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints compound near Eldorado.
It started with child abuse
Waco Tribune-Herald, 12 April 2008
WACO – Fifteen years ago the world was watching a stand-off involving federal agents and the Branch Davidians out near Elk.
Religion can’t shield illicit activities
Austin American-Statesman, 12 April 2008
AUSTIN – Freedom to worship as one chooses without government interference is a fundamental tenet of the U.S. Constitution.
Education – Not many takers
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 14 March 2008
FORT WORTH – Administrators in the Hurst-Euless-Bedford school district want to see every campus in their district rise to the state’s top-level “exemplary” rating.
People
Austin political operative a man of his word?
By Laylan Copelin, AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN, 12 April 2008
AUSTIN – To an earlier Capitol generation, Austin political consultant Kelly Fero was a fixture, the guy writing speeches for or being quoted on behalf of statewide Democratic officials, back when there were statewide Democratic officials.
Vo used state letterhead in complaint to HPD
By MATT STILES, Houston Chronicle, 12 April 2008
HOUSTON – A month before complaints about problems at his apartments were disclosed publicly, state Rep. Hubert Vo used his government letterhead to complain to Houston police commanders about the department's scrutiny and accuse officers of harassment.
Fort Worth Republican to lead McCain's team in Texas, other states
By AMAN BATHEJA, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 11 April 2008
FORT WORTH – Fort Worth Republican Craig Goldman has been tapped to manage the Texas region for John McCain's presidential campaign, according to a campaign representative.
Senate confirms Catharina Haynes for seat on 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
By TODD J. GILLMAN, Dallas Morning News, 11 April 2008
WASHINGTON – Dallas lawyer Catharina Haynes won confirmation Thursday for a lifetime appointment to the powerful 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Grandson of ex-lawmaker from Fort Worth jailed in slayings
By DEANNA BOYD, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 11 April 2008
FORT WORTH – Sunday's shooting at a southeast Fort Worth birthday party that left a woman and her 5-year-old granddaughter dead upset Justice of the Peace Sidney Thompson.
Leader of 20 million Ismaili Muslims coming to Texas
Houston Chronicle, 11 April 2008
AUSTIN – The Aga Khan, spiritual leader of 20 million Ismaili Muslims around the world, was expected to arrive in Texas today for an eight-day U.S. visit which includes meetings with officials and adherents.
In Searching for New Job, Gonzales Sees No Takers
By NEIL A. LEWIS, New York Times, 13 April 2008
WASHINGTON – Alberto R. Gonzales, like many others recently unemployed, has discovered how difficult it can be to find a new job.
State environmental agency soon to weigh candidates for top spot
By Asher Price, AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN, 14 April 2008
AUSTIN – The job description for the top spot at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has not been posted yet, but it could read something like this:
Ministries should comply with Senate request
Dallas Morning News, 12 April 2008
DALLAS – Republican Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa and Democratic Sen. Max Baucus of Montana are on to something, and the top members of the Senate Finance Committee shouldn't back down.
What I heard Petraeus say
By John Cornyn, Waco Tribune-Herald, 13 April 2008
WASHINGTON – America’s top military commander and chief diplomat in Iraq reported Tuesday that we are making significant progress there.